Because our private parts are called such for a reason. Demand RADICAL and UNAPOLOGETIC love for not only your body....but for your privacy as well! Until we acknowledge the humanity in everyone instead of just the black, white, gay, transgender, gay, tall, short, fat, etc., there is no way we can acknowledge how that humanity is being compromised. Transcription included below. [VIDEO: Katie Couric, Laverne Cox and Carmen appear on the screen. Katie Couric: So excited to see you! Laverne Cox: I am so excited to be here! Im on the Katie Couric show! Oh my goodness! Katie Couric: Well, were excited youre excited. First of all, lets talk a little bit about the show. Im such a fan. Love your character. Tell us about her for people who dont perhaps watch orange is the New Black. LC: I play Sofia Rosette and Sofia is an incarcerated trans woman in Rigefield Prison and she is in jail for - I dont like to giving it this way, but shes in jail for credit card fraud. She stole credit cards to finance her transition and now shes a prison hair stylist and she has a wonderful story - her back story with her family - and shes also a wife and a mother. Shes beautifully complicated and I love playing her. Katie Couric: I know youre a twin and your brother actually got to play you on the show in a flashback. I mean - how lucky was that for the casting directors, right? Laverne Cox: GC, creator said - she said in an interview said apparently there was a joke in the writing room saying, Okay, for Sofia we wanna hire a trans woman and hopefully she has an identical twin brother so we can do the flashbacks, and this is before they even knew about me. When they casted e, they did know that I had a twin brother and it just all sorta worked out. Katie Couric: And for you, Carmen, is Laverne in a way a role model? Carmen: Totally, totally I mean she -youre out there, you put yourself out there. I met you a bunch of times at the [inaudible] events - and shes so personable. You can come up and talk to her and - you know what I mean? Its good to have people like that that are trans out their representing us in a good way. Laverne Cox: Thank you. Im so proud of you - I guess you have [inaudible] magazine - Its big. Carmen: Shes great for us - trans awareness week... Laverne Cox: Thank you. Katie Couric: And you were named, I guess, Out magazines one of the most 100 influential LGBT people in the word, which was great and do you see yourself as a role model? LC: I would never be so arrogant to think that someone should model their life after me, but the idea of possibility - the idea that I get to live my dreams out in public will hopefully show those folks that that is possible and so I prefer the term possibility model to role model. *Audience applause* Katie Couric: Thats nice, thats a good way of looking at it. Im curious you know - and I think all of us want to educated and Carmen was sort of recoiling a little bit when I asked her about her transition and she said that people who are not familiar with this or are familiar with transgenders - theyre preoccupied with the genitalia question and Im wondering if you think thats true and how - if you have the same feelings about that that Carmen does. Laverne Cox: I do - *looks at Carmen* and I was very proud of you for saying that - and I do feel like theres a preoccupation with that and I think that preoccupation with surgery and transition defines trans people and that we dont get to really deal with the real lived experiences - the reality of trans peoples lives. We are still often the targets of violence. We experience discrimination disproportionally to the rest of the community. Our unemployment rate is twice the national average, if youre a trans person of color its four times the national average. The homicide rate in the GLBTQ community is highest amongst trans women. And when we focus on transition - we dont actually get to talk about those things. Theres a young woman by the name of Illan Nedles[spelling?] who on August 17, she was just walking down the street with some friends, minding her own business and she was cat called by a couple of guys. One of them - once they realized she was trans - she was beaten into a coma and five days later she died. This is the reality of so many trans peoples lives in this country. Trans women of color, whose lives are in danger simply for being who they are and weve been looking for justice for someones murder. Were looking for justice for so many trans people across this country and by focusing on bodies, we dont focus on the lived realities of that oppression and that discrimination. *Audience applause* Katie Couric: [Inaudible over audience applause] ...That was very well put. Laverne and Carmen thank you both so much for being here!]
Posted on: Tue, 21 Jan 2014 02:20:50 +0000
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